In 29th December 2009 Brian won his second SWPP/BPPA competition of the year!

Brian submitted a shot he'd taken of Paul Olsen and his groomsmen at Parliament Square in Edinburgh for the weekly BPPA forum Wedding competition; "The Boys". The weekly forum competitions are open to all SWPP & PBBA members and are usually well subscribed, with a different theme each week. In Week 42 (Dec 09) there were 48 individual submissions in the Wedding category and Brian came top of the voters poll with 17% of the vote. Earlier in the year Brian also won a SWPP/BPPA forum competition in the General category for "Rain" with a shot of magician Paul Temple after his Edinburgh Fringe gig was abandoned because of a rain-storm.

"The Boys" - SWPP & BPPA Wedding Forum Winner, Week 42

Brian says of this image "This shot started out as a planned set-up. I'd been shooting the boys around Parliament Square and Law Courts because it was raining and we could use the cloisters if it got too wet. I'd taken some other shots with them when the groom, Paul (2nd left) decided he wanted to try climbing the wall! Turned out that three of them were mountaineers and were used to this sort of thing. The boys on the right then followed Paul. I immediately saw the shot I wanted and asked them to each come down a bit. The chap on the left wasn't a climber and he couldn't spread his legs wide enough so I asked him to lean across instead".

"In post-processing after the wedding the sandstone looked better in a low-contrast black & white and it also minimised the effect of the wet stone steps. I cropped it a bit applied a vignette then painted around the layer mask to get the shape I wanted. Finally, in the output stage I added the border, stroke and signature".

Brian hopes 2010 brings more competition wins and more fantastic images for his brides.

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